I remember one morning I woke up and felt so unhappy that I couldn’t get out of bed. The thing was I lived this seemingly perfect life.

That morning I knew I was living a life. There was something that was bothering me for a while.

It was a facade. I had the perfect life. Perfect marriage. Perfect husband. I was stuck in there. I still didn’t do anything about it.

He changed our savings account password

I had so much trust in him that he was taking care of our finances that I didn’t even check. I never went to check what was going on in our account.

Who is this guy? I don’t even know him. That was the starting point for me.

I realized all the feelings I have had and ignored. That I felt I was not connected to him. I didn’t feel the love I didn’t feel the passion anymore and I had all these fears.

A year after that I found myself in the middle of a divorce.

Neither of us wanted to move out because at that point our boys were 6 and 8. We decided we can be professional parents together. We were separated in the same house for two years.

At the two years separation I felt really depressed. I felt as a Mom I was failing my kids.

My young son looked at me and said, “mom just divorce dad. You know you want it. You know that’s why you’re angry. Just get it over with.” I realized at that point that as much as I was hiding things it was showing in my face. My sadness, my anger. Everything.

I found yoga. I heard yoga can help you release stress. That helped me to release anxiety and be able to think a little bit more clear.

I remember the first day my life coach told me I don’t think you love yourself.

I put all my accomplishments as a sign I love myself. Because I didn’t feel good enough I was searching for something outside of myself. I kept accomplishing all these different things because that made me feel complete and good enough.

My husband said, “You always complain I don’t love you but you don’t let me love you. You have built this wall. I can never get close to you.”

If you don’t love yourself you don’t allow people to love you because you don’t feel worthy of love.

I kept creating the same situation.

After two years of doing yoga, meditation, life coaching, hypnotherapy, energy healing, I transformed my life. I felt different.

I would write three things about him that I appreciate.

My energy towards him started changing. We started talking and became friends. We started sharing things we never did before. It felt safe to talk.

I opened my heart and allowed him to love me and we decided to get back together and stay and we are still together.

It wasn’t easy. Trust me. It wasn’t like it happened overnight.

One day my 9-year boy said to me, “Mom I love the way you are, please don’t go back the other way.” Which brought tears to my eyes.

It doesn’t matter what situation you are in. If you have gratitude for what you have now then you would know your next step.

Gratitude allows us to see that what we focus on expands.

I saw my own value. I saw all the ways I was beautiful.

I deserve happiness. I deserve joy.

When you focus on beautiful things all you see around you is more beauty.

I got married right after college. I was young. When I married my wife she already had two kids and I was a step-dad.

Fresh out of college I stepped into a major responsibility role and then we had our son shortly after.

The first several years of our marriage things were going great.

Both of us lost our self-identity throughout our relationship and our marriage.

I’m so grateful since we’ve been separated we’re friends.

This was something we needed to do. We needed to be apart to grow and become the people we wanted to be. When we were together we just couldn’t accomplish what we wanted to accomplish.

Everything was on my shoulders. Financially…everything was on me and it’s a lot. Especially when you have kids. It took a toll on me and I finally got to the point where enough was enough.

We’re always putting people’s needs first ahead of ours.

You hear that phrase, “Happy wife, happy life.” It’s not true. At the end of the day, we have needs too. What are my needs?

I’m in my mid-30’s and I’m not going to live my life as a roommate with someone just because we have kids together. So I had to make that decision. It’s a tough decision for a lot of guys.

You just realize at the end of the day this isn’t it. This isn’t the right partner for me and it’s time for me to figure out what’s the next step, make that decision, move on and decide I need to focus on myself.

I had to figure things out. I’m not myself. I’m not who I am.

When you first meet someone and start dating everything is great.

Over time stuff starts to eat at you. A lot of stuff was on me financially. That took a toll on me.

I lost my house. I went through bankruptcy. I went through the marriage problems I had, tax problems, so many issues that were stemming from that relationship… there’s only so much you can take.

It’s one of the hardest things when you’re with someone for 14-15 years and then boom! All of a sudden you’re single. There’s no manual on how to handle that.

One of the things that’s really helped me overall is being active.

During my marriage, I did I have a struggle with alcohol. It became dependent on my life to deal with daily stress.

I’m enjoying a lot of those outdoor adventures and staying away from bar scenes. I’m active with the church I go to. I actually make coffee for all the patrons there and I really enjoy that.

I think the worst thing you can probably do is be alone to yourself and your thoughts and think about all the things that went wrong in the relationship. I think that’s where people can get into trouble.

There is that period where there’s self-defeat.

Realize we are human and this is a part of life. Yeah, it sucks but at the same time, there is a lot of good stuff we can do out there and be a part of.

One of the things that really helped me with self-reflection is journaling.

I think what I really like about that’s helped me out is it just gets things out. Could be positive, it could be negative, it could be things I’m excited about. It’s personal and it’s all kept private.

It’s a work in progress. I can’t come on here and say one tool or five tools are going to solve your problem but things are out there and resources that can help you.

Ultimately it falls on you. You’ve got to make that decision to move on.

Realize you’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there that are going through this.

Just realize this is a part of life for a lot of us. It wasn’t the right partner, that’s okay.

Don’t immediately jump into another relationship. If you’re in a long-term relationship I think the worst thing you can do is try to seek someone immediately.

Ultimately at the end of the day, we’re responsible for our own happiness and we have to figure out what that is. For us to go from one relationship to another we’re never going to figure out what that is.

That self-reflection period is critical. There’s no time limit. It could be years, it could be months.

Be around people who are going to make you feel better. Don’t be around people who are going to drain your energy or be toxic for you.

I became pregnant and we started to spend more time together and realized we should not live together.

It was sad at the time but looking back it seems such a necessary part of my story to come out the other side.

The question I asked myself was what do I want my life to be like?

Having a vision for what I want to be like and then executing that vision I probably don’t give myself enough credit for how amazing that really was.

I think almost dying brought things into sharp relief for me. I decided I didn’t like the life that I was living.

He confessed he had fallen out of love with me.

Am I somebody that’s desirable?

I had the reputation of dating a lot.

I really value having the freedom to have a relationship that takes its natural state.

I didn’t like living on the relationship escalator. This opened my eyes to polyamory.

As I envision my life going forward this is the way I want to be.

Polyamory and relationship anarchy (which is another subset of ethical non-monogamy), those philosophies and practices have really helped us as co-parents.

Nothing happens in polyamory that isn’t agreed to from the beginning. There is such a thing as cheating in polyamory.

Everything is subject to negotiation. Everything is examined and nothing is taken for granted.

I had to really drill down and figure out what it was I that I wanted in my relationships and what I was willing to accept in relationships.

Currently, I have two partners.

Is she going to try to take my husband?

I’m not a person who thinks everyone should be polyamorous.

It’s a really fine line talking to people about your personal life and talking to people about your sex life.

I would never deny one of the people I love to anybody. I feel that would diminish them. To the extent it comes out, I share it.

There are polyamorous people who have relationships that don’t involve sex at all.

Jealousy is an emotion that everyone deals with.

Jealousy is a signal from my brain that I have a need here that is not being met.

Learning that these negative emotions that we have mean something.

I was just me again.

External validation is a cheap and easy drug and it goes away fast. I had to learn very quickly to cultivate my own internal validation and that was a huge turning point for me.

Try to find some calm and think about what you want your life to be.

Envision yourself in the place you want to be in 5 or 10 years and then start making the moves to make those things happen. Even the stuff that seems really impossible or really hard. You are a resourceful person. You can achieve these things on your own.

We received a phone call that he wasn’t breathing. He was on life support for 3 days

We did the DNR and he was braindead. He passed away from a massive brain aneurysm.

I was 38 at the time and he was 48. Our daughters were 8 and 11.

I remember when they told us there was nothing that they could do.

I’ve always thought myself and independent, strong, and powerful woman. I was surprised to find how broken I was.

My life prior was so easy and I didn’t realize it.

When it’s a sudden death there’s a lot that’s left unsaid. I had some regrets from our last moments together.

We got cards and condolences from around Kansas City

The emotional support that I lost broke me and I wasn’t prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for the physical pains of grief. I had no idea what pain was until my husband passed away.

I did not realize how easily I could be broken.

I had a double ear infection and sinus infection and that was due to all the crying. The weight on your chest…it feels like you cannot breathe like somebody has their hands around your throat.

Nothing else matters except this deep dark pit that you are sitting in.

The emotional exhaustion relates incredibly physically.

Here I was leaning against the side of the shower just bawling. I’d hear my daughters doing the same.

There came a period of adrenaline too. And then anger arose. I wasn’t mad at Eric. You can’t be mad at someone that didn’t mean to die.

Life happens regardless of what your plans are.

I know that I had to feel everything that I was feeling. No matter how messed up it seemed or how messed up it felt it was valid.

I had to feel those crazy things in order to move forward.

We were a statistic in that we were not prepared. Eric didn’t have a will. We didn’t have enough life insurance.

I did not leave my house for quite some time because everyone knew us. I hated it. I hated it so much.

My kids are tired of grieving and they want it to go back to normal but they can’t because everybody knows that their Dad died so they’re walking around on eggshells. We don’t want the eggshells but we need the eggshells.

I think every time we share it makes it easier.

Grieve really really hard now so you can feel something else later. Doing this was making me stronger. Doing this was making me braver.

It’s nice to be able to smile while we’re sharing this stuff with each other.

When I was in the deep pits of grief if something triggered me I would literally be done for the day. Now I cry, I laugh about it and we get up and go. We go do life.

I like who I am now a whole lot better than who I was before. I hate that I had to lose my husband to evolve to who I am today.

I am more gentle. I don’t sweat the small stuff. Literally, it doesn’t matter. If it won’t matter in 5 years it doesn’t matter. I am more appreciative and I am more grateful.

I am blessed for this laundry because these people are here to dirty it. There is so much we take for granted in life and then life teaches us a lesson.

I put my phone down more.

When you do those things you create more experiences. The stuff doesn’t matter. I have a slower-paced lifestyle and I like it.

How many times do we pose for professional photos with our children on the grass? Do you really do that? Or do you just pose for professional photos? I find myself doing it more now.

We were both workaholics in our previous lives and we had let that happen.

We put ourselves to the wayside and I wish we had not.

Hold on to hope.

One day you’re going to look back at this time and think, “That was a really hard time but I made it.”

Your heart expands and you learn to carry on and brings your spouse honor and keeps their legacy alive because they have changed you. You are who you are today because of the person you were with.

Whomever you spend your time with helps you evolve into who you are going to become. I am a better person because of my husband Eric.

I found myself out there in this whole new crazy world of online dating

I dated a lot of really young men.

I went with the easy fun thing.

I’m almost living my life in reverse. I didn’t really have those crazy 20’s.

I dated a lot of young fun awesome guys.

A woman on a post-divorce rampage.

I was already off how I imagined my mental checklist of how my life should be I might as well enjoy my life for a bit.

I was never really ever alone.

I was someone who had one boyfriend after another.

I was constantly filling my life with men.

It’s probably a little cliche but it’s scary to get comfortable with yourself.

One of the things I never could do was be alone and feel okay about that.

It might just be me and that be okay.

It might be cliche but you’re enough.

I traveled on my own for the first time.

I loved having a little romance with myself doing the things I love.

I imagined I would meet someone else and have another child and immediately be back in a family unit situation and that didn’t happen.

Maybe I might not have another child but the one I have is pretty amazing.

The logistics side of being a single mom is a little bit challenging.

It’s hard to leave your adorable cute child to go on a date.

My life plan involved staying married to the same person forever.

It’s very odd to move back to a place when you’ve gotten divorced.

The idea of sharing him broke my heart.

I almost lived two lives for a period of time.

I didn’t want to sit with myself for too long. I remember filling space.

You can keep running and busying yourself endlessly.

It took me a string of really bad breakups to take a moment and figure out what’s going on.

It made me a better artist. I opened myself up in those ways.

I never used to write. Now I write every day. I journal.

You can really fall into living a very intentional life and not really going outside your comfort zone.

It’s scary but you also get all those wonderful experiences.

I’m happy and where I need to be.

We’re all kind of a work in progress. Sometimes you think you have it all figured out and then a day later something happens and you’re like dear God!

I thought, “I will leave my marriage and everything will be okay. This one thing is the problem and when this is different everything will be better.” I don’t think I realized that there were just a lot of my own things that I had not dealt with.

There are patterns I have in relationships and the types of men that I choose.

I have to say turning 40 is really a thing. That came out of nowhere.

Letting go of what I thought my life would look like at 40.

I’m sort of a grownup and not at the same time.

You get older but you don’t necessarily feel older.

I very much feel like a little girl if I’m going through a breakup.

The way that I’ve been living my life is probably a bit of a mix of real-life responsibilities and being a bit of a teenager because I can.